


Her Majesty's Misfortunate Maid and the Butler

by Bookah



Series: Her Majesty's Misfortunate Maid [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Airships, Butlers, Humor, Maids, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14902172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookah/pseuds/Bookah
Summary: When a charming butler comes aboard the Mungo Park, Violet Jessup is determined to impress him. Will she succeed, or will her budding desire be snuffed out by yet another ill-conceived notion? Rated T for archaic sordid language, slightly suggestive allusions, and an overabundance of cat references.





	Her Majesty's Misfortunate Maid and the Butler

Aboard Her Majesty’s Airship Mungo Park there was a special guest. Lord Rodney Pickering was a famous explorer, having managed to find his way through the most dangerous parts of the Congo, Burma, and Portsmouth. While cruising past the Nile Delta the Mungo Park had been approached by a small airship carrying the distinguished Lord, who had just finished exploring Cairo’s famous exotic quarters. Captain Morgan had been delighted to bring the man aboard as a guest until such time as the airship made port.

This had proven to be a welcome boon for Violet Jessup, First Class Maid. Oh, it wasn’t Lord Rodney that had proven such a pleasant distraction for her. Certainly the man exuded charm and had the sort of look that made many a woman swoon, collapsing onto her exotic quarter. His voice was very smooth and velvety, causing melting of many a heart. And his fortune was certainly well enough endowed to cause many a speculative blush.

No, it was, in fact, the butler that did it. Mr. Francis Dauntless was a handsome fellow in his own right, and always impeccably dressed. His skills as a butler had won him nearly as much renown as his famous master, whether it was in his ability to lay table in the bush, remove spitting cobra venom from a smoking jacket, or hold off an entire tribe of aborigines with a butter knife and serving spoon. Violet, indeed, most of the female staff, held him in a position of some awe.

For the Head Butler of Her Majesty’s Airship Mungo Park Mr. Dauntless was a less welcome guest. Oh, Jeeves would never have so much as whispered a disparaging word about the man. He was a proper British Butler, after all, and would never have embarrassed Captain Morgan that way. But to those who knew him well it was clear that Jeeves was displeased by the presence of such a charismatic butler, and more so by the effect that was having on his staff.

“Miss Jessup!” Jeeves snapped, his voice very proper but also quite clearly impatient. “I asked you a question. I expect answers to be prompt and informed.”

“Oh! I’m so very sorry,” Violet responded, her skin flushing red with embarrassment. She’d been in the midst of a particularly lurid daydream involving Mr. Dauntless, 20 yards of silk cloth and an entire place setting when Jeeves had snapped at her. “I’m afraid I was rather lost in thought.”

“Rather,” Jeeves tone was withering. “I was asking if you needed any help inventorying the linen closet today.”

“Oh, no sir. I think I will be fine. Thank you.” Violet curtsied and hurried away.

The linen closet wasn’t really a closet so much as an entire room. After all, even though it wasn’t a big ship, the Mungo Boy was still a ship, and there needed to be enough linen for everyone. Shortages of sheets just wouldn’t have done on a British ship.

Jeeves had begun to harbor a nasty suspicion that such an impending shortage might be eminent, and wanted to be satisfied as to whether that was the case or not. Violet was inclined to agree. After the incident with The Magnificent Martin and his Marvelous Massage Machine a goodly number of sheets had required discarding, but no one was quite sure just how many remained. It was just unfortunate for her that she’d been the one to get a count.

Her musing on the subject were cheerfully interrupted as she rounded a corner to see Francis Dauntless emerging from the linen closet.

“Oh! Mr. Dauntless!” Violet clapped a hand to her chest and smiled. “How are you, sir?”

Mr. Dauntless turned quickly, slapping at a bright red spot on his neck and scratching.

“Oh! Miss Violet, however are you?” He smiled, still scratching at his neck. “I’m quite well, aside from these African flies. Have you noticed them?”

“I haven’t, not at all!” Violet exclaimed. “We’ll have to do something about them at once. Mr. Jeeves will be most displeased if we allow pests to continue to gad about biting guests.”

“No fear, miss.” Mr. Dauntless gave a little bow, hand still to his neck. “I’ll see to it myself. What sort of butler would I be if I couldn’t handle such a trivial thing? Don’t bother yourself or Mr. Jeeves with such a trifle.” With that he swept up her hand and placed his lips to the back of it. “It will be my honor to do this task for you.”

Violet felt herself to be a little light headed. “Why, I suppose that would be wonderful,” she replied a remote part of her noting that her voice seemed a bit breathy. “I am sure you shall do your best.”

With a wink and a nod, Mr. Dauntless hurried away, clearly eager to rid the world, or at least the ship, of all insects that might inconvenience its passengers. Violet stood, hands clasped over her chest admiringly. She remained there after he had disappeared around a corner until a squeak of surprise interrupted her less than maid-like attention.

“Ah! Violet! I didn’t see you there! You surprised me.”

Violet turned to see one of the laundry ladies peering out at her from the linen closet, her skin flushed almost as bright red as her lips. Violet immediately grew a touch alarmed. “Oh look at you, Julie! I must have given you such a start. Quick, let’s get you a seat and a glass of water.”

“Oh,” Julie fluttered. “I’ll be fine, just give me a moment to catch my breath.” The girl waved a hand airily, declining Violet’s efforts to give her a hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh!” Violet remembered her task. “Mr. Jeeves wanted me to give an accounting of the linen stocks.”

“I see!” Julie gave a cheerful smile. “Oh thank goodness that’s it!”

Violet cocked her head at Julie’s odd response. “You certainly seem pleased by this.”

Julie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, er… well…” Then she laughed. “It’s just that we’ve been so worried that we were going to run low. But hearing of the Head Butler’s interest is so very reassuring.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Violet gave a smile. “Well, let’s get to work counting so I can give him what he needs to see that we do not disgrace the name of Her Majesty.”

“Of course.”

Some time later Violet stood before Mr. Jeeves once more. Again, however, her mind was elsewhere. Again she found herself being sharply brought back to reality by the stern voice of the Head Butler.

“Miss Jessup!” Jeeves looked particularly irritated. “Please keep your mind on the subject at hand. The correct answer to ‘How many sheets do we still have?’ is not ‘Silky soft white gloves’ but instead a number.”

Violet immediately colored. She had indeed been thinking about how soft a certain set of silk gloves would be on her cheek and quite lost herself to it. She shuffled awkwardly and coughed. “Forgive me sir. We have enough for two changes of every bed aboard without washing.”

Jeeves grunted softly. “We shall be wanting to resupply then. I will speak with the Captain about the matter. But that leads to another question.” Jeeves sat back and steepled his fingers before him. “If we must stop in and re-provision on linens we should be thorough. Do run down to the menagerie in the hold and see if the Menagerist is running low on food for the beast collection.”

“Right away, sir.” Violet scuttled away on her new mission before her wandering mind could cause another embarrassing lapse. So intent was she on this particular need to perform no further gaffes that she was almost to the hold before it occurred to her what an unusual task she had been dispatched on. Providing for provisioning was not the normal sort of thing a maid would be involved in. Rather one might expect that the purser and a stores clerk would investigate the matter of stocks.

“Why would I have been sent on this task?” Violet puzzled as she turned into the cargo bay section holding the various creatures that had been collected (or manufactured) during the voyage thus far. Suddenly she brightened up. “It must be because he relies on me so!”

“Ah! Miss Jessup, of course he does!”

Violet expressed her surprise in a shrill wordless exclamation. She nearly bounced off the ceiling, both walls, the adjacent hatch, and an emu that shouldn’t have been there as they hadn’t visited Van Diemen's Land yet. Once she had sufficiently recovered her faculties she discovered that Mr. Dauntless was emerging from the Menagerie.

“Mr. Dauntless, forgive me. I wasn’t expecting to find you here.” Violet put her hand to her chest, feeling her heart throbbing within it. She was certain it was from being startled.

“Yes, well, I was interested in a close examination of a cat.” Mr. Dauntless smiled.

“A cat?” Violet looked puzzled. “Whatever for?”

“Ah, it’s related to those African flies from earlier, Miss Jessup. They tend to come together.”

Violet clapped her hands together. “Marvelous! Do you think that you will be able to eliminate the flies?”

“It is my desire to examine every cat aboard ship and verify they all are healthy.” Mr. Dauntless took Violet’s hand and bowed over it, his eyes looking up towards hers. “It is my duty towards such a lovely young lady as yourself to see that you are well cared for.”

Violet could feel her heart rate double. “Such a gentleman,” she whispered. “I am ever so grateful you are aboard, sir.”

A set of footsteps began to echo in the menagerie. The sound reminded Violet she had come on a mission. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “That must be the Menagerist. I need to speak with him.”

“Yes, well,” Mr. Dauntless nodded graciously. “I must be about my duties as well. I shouldn’t keep you. I would be glad to spend some time speaking with you later about this matter?”

“Of… of course,” Violet replied. Her stomach was all a flutter, and she almost forgot her task once more.

“Perhaps I shall call on you this evening then, after we are done with our duties.”

“That would be wonderful.” Violet smiled, then turned and stepped into the Menagerie in a daze. She barely noticed the young woman walking the opposite direction as she passed the monkey cages. “Oh, hello Catherine,” she said once she noticed her. “Is the Menagerist in?”

Catherine stopped, and fidgeted in place. “No, but can I help you? I’m the assistant, after all.”

“I just needed to check on how we were doing on feed for the animals. Mr. Jeeves was wanting to know.”

“Fine. We’re fine. We have plenty. Nothing to worry about.” Catherine shimmied.

“Thank you, I’ll let him know.” Violet smiled and left the compartment. As she walked she began to contemplating the evening to come.

“I do hope I’m not too much of a bore for him. I mean, I’m just a plain maid. I’ve never done anything adventurous while he… He’s done everything! Still,” she fretted. “I just think it would be nice to spend a while talking. Perhaps he’ll read me some romantic poetry as we watch the sunset from the observation deck. Why, he may even take my hand again. I can’t imagine anything more exciting!” She took a moment to catch her breath.

“Still, Violet, you’re such a simple person. He won’t see you as very exciting or interesting in your own right. Not one bit. Unless…” Violet began to smile, then to beam outright as the idea took hold.

She hurried as quickly as she could without violating proper decorum. She didn’t want to lose the idea while reporting her findings to Mr. Jeeves. Given that there would be little time before the evening came she also felt a little rushed to get things done on time.

Sticking her head in the door to Jeeves’ little office, Violet blurted out, “The Menagerie is fine, they don’t need anything sir. Pardon me!” She pulled her head back quickly and began quick marching down the hallway.

“Miss Jessup!” Jeeves called.

Violet slid to a halt and turned, placing her hands demurely before her. “Yes, sir?”

“Where are you off to in such a rush?” Jeeves looked slightly cross as he stood in the hallway outside his door.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I had a task come up that I needed to hurry and do. It should be of great help to our guests, and I wanted to get to it at once.” Violet swallowed. “You don’t have an immediate need of me, do you sir?”

“Our guests?” Jeeves arched an eyebrow slightly.

“Mr. Dauntless, in particular,” Violet responded.

“Based off your eagerness, I dare say it’s another of your dubious contraptions, is it not?” Jeeves lowered the eyebrow into a more contemplative position.

Violet sighed, feeling her shoulders sag. She tried to prevent the slump lest Jeeves see it and chastise her for a distinctly non-British posture. “Yes, sir.”

Jeeves stood silently in the hallway a moment, seeming to think. After a few breaths during which Violet’s heart filled with a proper London fog, he stirred. “I suppose that I should exercise greater faith in your abilities, Miss Jessup.” He turned and re-entered his cabin. “I have no further duties for you for the remainder of the day. Do try to keep from getting too much grease on your smock.”

Violet gasped, then bounced three times with glee. “Thank you, sir! I’ll do my best!” With that she spun about and began moving quickly enough to elicit a “Decorum!” from Jeeves’ office. She slowed to something barely inside the bounds of reasonable behavior and began making her way to the labs. She knew just where the parts she needed were.

After a couple of hours tinkering with specimen storage tanks, articulated legs left over from a failed experiment with a self cleaning chimney sweeper, a number of ladies’ hat pins, ten gallons of Dr. Methuselah's Elixir of Longevity, five spools of twine, and a rolling pin liberated from the kitchen, Violet was done. She quickly changed out of her now very greasy smock into something far more presentable, swept up her contraption, and swept out of the lab.

“I’ll just take this up to the guest wing and turn it on outside Mr. Dauntless’ room. Why, when he sees what it does about the flies he’ll be more than eager to see me as someone interesting! Someone exciting! Someone he might even… Dare I say it? Kiss on the cheek!” She blushed at her extremely inappropriate thought and made her way to the guest quarters.

Upon reaching the space before Mr. Dauntless’ quarters, Violet bent down as demurely as she could. She placed her device on the floor, then began winding away at the little key sticking out of the back. Once completed she rose and opened the door just enough for the device to spin and then scuttle away in precisely the opposite direction.

“Where are you going? Mr. Dauntless’ room is that way!” Violet exclaimed, and gave chase. Unfortunately for her, the design was quite agile. It zipped along on its eight ungainly legs, leaving her behind even when she abandoned decorum for panic and began to run after it. “Stop! Come back!” Soon it was out of sight.

“Oh no. Whatever shall I do this time?” Violet wailed. She reached a cross passage and found herself wondering which way the device might have taken.

“What in blazes!”

Violet darted down the direction the mild vulgarity had come from, blushing slightly at the improperness of the language. She quickly found Professor Goldbloom. The man was exerting himself a good deal attempting to remove his arm from the wall. Unfortunately a stringy mass was resisting all of his efforts. “When I find out who made that mechanical spider, I shall challenge the man to a duel for this affront! Academic papers at 20 paces! To the first paper cut!”

Violet hurried past, saying nothing. She was clearly headed in the right direction. A growing number of artificial webs began to be seen, creating a trail for her to follow. It led out of the guest quarters, through the shooting gallery (where the webbing would prove to be excellent for catching ricochets), past the engine room (where it would gum up three auxiliary generators and the port side static discharger for weeks), through the chapel (no one would notice until the next Candlemass), and onward into the tailor’s compartment.

By this point Violet was having slight issues moving forward. Her dress was reasonably full, and so she was having to take great care to keep any of it from catching any of the bits of webbing strewn about. She had passed several others who had been less cautious, giving them a quick apology as she had hurried by in pursuit of her wayward machine. Cautiously she slipped into the tailor’s and began looking about for the device.

She found more than the device. It had, fortunately, snapped its spring and gone quite inert over in the corner where it now rested in the middle of a half-spun web. What caught her eye, however, were the two unfortunates next to it, also entangled in the web.

“Angelina?” Violet gasped at seeing the seamstress tangled up as she was. “Mr. Dauntless?” She gasped even more at seeing the man next to the seamstress.

“Oh, er…” Mr. Dauntless seemed very nervous. “Hello Miss Violet.”

Violet gaped. “Mr. Dauntless, where are your vest and jacket? And trousers?” She began to color quite brightly.

“Well, that is…” Mr. Dauntless tried to cover his long johns with his hands, but the webbing refused to cooperate. “They were torn while looking for flies, don’t you see? So I came down here to have them repaired by Miss Angelina.”

Violet turned to the indicated woman. “Is that true?”

Angelina tried to nod, but her hair suffered the same difficulties as Mr. Dauntless’ hands. “Yes, of course. Why else would he be here?” She looked quite uncomfortable.

“Well, that makes sense,” Violet agreed. “But whatever are you doing in only a camisole and bloomers?”

“Well,” the woman grew even more uncomfortable. “It wouldn’t have been fair to have him in his undergarments while being fully dressed.”

Violet just stared at the two. The two remained quiet as they dangled in the web.

“Disgraceful.”

Violet nearly jumped three feet in the air as the voice of the Head Butler sounded behind her. She was prevented from doing so only by the fact that, in her surprise at what she had found in the web she had apparently stepped into a stray bundle of webbing and her right foot was now well and truly anchored. Instead she settled for proceeding to hyperventilate.

“Miss Jessup, it seems that Mr. Dauntless here has literally been caught in the act. He’s been rather the Casanova aboard this ship, disgracing the butler’s kit he seems to not quite be wearing at the moment.”

Mr. Dauntless flushed, his head lowered in shame. “It’s true,” he sighed. “I have a terrible problem. I can’t help myself. I’ve tried, but it’s like an addiction. Like the strongest opium in the world, only far more pleasurable.” He sighed and looked at Violet, his eyes watery. “Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?”

Jeeves snorted, though he did so softly enough to avoid any appearance of being anything other than composed and disciplined. For her part Angelina remained tactfully silent, though she certainly seemed displeased at the current conversation.

Violet felt her heart melting. The poor man was confessing to enduring an awful condition. She knew that it should hurt, but she couldn’t help but feel compassion for the fellow, suffering and humiliated as he was. She gave a smile. “Of course, I can forgive you.”

Mr. Dauntless smiled from the web, eyes and teeth sparkling. “Thank you. I just regret that you were hurt as the result of an unfortunate incident caused by someone’s shoddily constructed aberration.”

“Shoddily constructed aberration?” Violet’s voice was flat.

“Yes,” Mr. Dauntless replied. “That spider-like device next to me. Clearly it was the ill conceived work of a diabolical mind meant to ensnare the entire crew of this vessel. Thank goodness it simply, mindlessly ran amok due to a poorly ordered Babbage Controller and then broke down due to its inferior construction.”

“Ill-conceived?” Violet bent over and savagely unlaced her boot. “Poorly Ordered?” She stepped out of it and ripped the contraption out of the web next to Mr. Dauntless. “INFERIOR CONSTRUCTION?”

“Why, Miss Jessup?” Mr. Dauntless looked alarmed. “Whatever is the matter? Surely this wasn’t something you constructed?”

Violet didn’t answer. Instead she simply popped open a panel on the device, reached into it, and gave a pump a vicious squeeze. Mr. Dauntless gaped at the sudden blast of sticky adhesive and string that came spraying out over him for a dismayingly long time. At last the string gave out. Violet spun about and proceeded to march out of the compartment.

“Miss Jessup,” Jeeves said as she began to brush past him.

She froze, suddenly feeling a blast of terror. She’d made quite the fool of herself. Worse, she’d made a fool of a guest. She’d acted quite out of place in public. Jeeves would be livid. He would throw her off the ship. He’d make her clean the grease traps for a month first. And before that, he’d speak sternly to her. She could feel the doom descending up her.

“Yes, sir?” she responded quietly.

“May I recommend a hot bath, a glass of sherry, and some Nathaniel Hawthorne? I find that when I have an evening off those can be most relaxing.”

“Sir?”

“I did give you the rest of the day off, did I not?” Jeeves arched an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir,” Violet nodded.

“Then off with you. I’ve rather a mess to clean up here.”

“Will you manage, sir?” Violet asked, feeling a bit confused.

“Of course. I am, after all, a Proper English Butler,” he responded, giving Mr. Dauntless a sharp look as he emphasized the word ‘Proper’.

“Yes, sir,” Violet smiled and scooted out of the compartment with only one boot on. As she left, she could hear Jeeves begin sorting out the mess.

“Now, Mr. Dauntless, about the proper treatment of subordinate staff…”

Mr. Dauntless sighed.


End file.
